NetLogo Models Library: Tetris NetLogo Models Library: (back to the library) Tetris If you download the NetLogo application , this model is included. (You can also run this model in your browser , but we don't recommend it; details here .) WHAT IS IT? This is the classic puzzle game, Tetris. The game involves falling pieces composed of four blocks in different configurations. The object of the game is to complete horizontal rows of blocks in the well. Any time a row is completed it disappears and the blocks above it fall down. The more rows you clear with the placement of a single piece, the more points you receive. If you clear enough rows, you move on to the next level. The higher the level, the more points you receive for everything, but the pieces fall faster as well, increasing the challenge. HOW TO USE IT Monitors: -- SCORE shows your current score. -- LINES shows the number of lines you have cleared. -- LEVEL shows your current level. Sliders: -- STARTING-LEVEL selects the beginning level for the game. Choosing a higher level to begin allows you to get more points faster and increase the initial falling speed.

Your level will not increase until your number of lines is 10*(level+1). (i.e. starting-level=3, level will stay 3 until 40 lines are cleared.) -- DEBRIS-LEVEL sets how many lines of random blocks will be created at the bottom of the well at the beginning of the game. Buttons: -- NEW sets up a new game with the initial settings. -- PLAY begins the game. Controls: -- ROTLEFT rotates the current piece 90 degrees to the left. -- ROTRIGHT rotates the current piece 90 degrees the right. -- LEFT moves the current piece one space left. -- DROP causes the current piece to drop to the bottom of the well immediately. -- RIGHT moves the current piece one space right. -- DOWN moves the current piece one space down. Options (Switches) -- SHOW-NEXT-PIECE? toggles the option which causes the piece which will appear in the well after you place the current one to be shown in a small box to the right of the well. THINGS TO NOTICE There are seven types of pieces. These are all the shapes that can be made by four blocks stuck together.

[][] Square-Block - good filler in flat areas, [][] hard to place in jagged areas [][][] L-Block - fits well into deep holes [] [][] S-Block - good filler in jagged areas, [][] hard to place in flat areas [][][] T-Block - good average piece, can fit [] almost anywhere well [][] Reverse S-Block (Or Z-Block) - good [][] filler in jagged areas, hard to place in flat areas [][][] Reverse L-Block - fits well into [] deep holes [][][][] I-Bar - Only piece that allows you to clear 4 lines at once (aka a Tetris) Scoring System: Note: Points are scored using level + 1 so that points are still scored at level 0.

-- 1 Line = 50*(level + 1) points -- 2 Lines = 150*(level + 1) points -- 3 Lines = 350*(level + 1) points -- 4 Lines = 1000*(level + 1) points (aka a Tetris) -- Clear the board = 2000*(level + 1) -- Every piece = 10*(level + 1) points THINGS TO TRY Add options for changing the width and depth of the well. Add the option of including pieces composed of more than four blocks, or fewer. NETLOGO FEATURES This model makes use of turtle breeds. HOW TO CITE If you mention this model or the NetLogo software in a publication, we ask that you include the citations below. For the model itself: Wilensky, U. (2001). NetLogo Tetris model. Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Please cite the NetLogo software as: Wilensky, U. (1999). NetLogo. Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright 2001 Uri Wilensky. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. Commercial licenses are also available. To inquire about commercial licenses, please contact Uri Wilensky at uri@northwestern.edu. This model was created as part of the projects: PARTICIPATORY SIMULATIONS: NETWORK-BASED DESIGN FOR SYSTEMS LEARNING IN CLASSROOMS and/or INTEGRATED SIMULATION AND MODELING ENVIRONMENT. The project gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation (REPP & ROLE programs) -- grant numbers REC #9814682 and REC-0126227. Tetris Tetris System 16 System E Tetris ( Russian : Те́трис, pronounced ) is a tile-matching puzzle video game , originally designed and programmed by Russian game designer Alexey Pajitnov .

[1] It was released on June 6, 1984, [2] while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow. [3] He derived its name from the Greek numerical prefix tetra- (all of the game’s pieces contain four segments) and tennis , Pajitnov’s favorite sport. [4] [5] Tetris was the first entertainment software to be exported from the USSR to the US, where it was published by Spectrum HoloByte for Commodore 64 and IBM PC. The Tetris game is a popular use of tetrominoes , the four-element special case of polyominoes . Polyominoes have been used in popular puzzles since at least 1907, and the name was given by the mathematician Solomon W. Golomb in 1953. However, even the enumeration of pentominoes is dated to antiquity.

The game (or one of its many variants) is available for nearly every video game console and computer operating system , as well as on devices such as graphing calculators , mobile phones, portable media players , PDAs , Network music players and even as an Easter egg on non-media products like oscilloscopes . [6] It has even inspired Tetris serving dishes [7] and been played on the sides of various buildings. [8] While versions of Tetris were sold for a range of 1980s home computer platforms as well as arcades , it was the hugely successful handheld version for the Game Boy launched in 1989 that established the game as one of the most popular ever. Electronic Gaming Monthly ‘s 100th issue had Tetris in first place as “Greatest Game of All Time”. In 2007, Tetris came in second place in IGN ‘s “100 Greatest Video Games of All Time”.

In January 2010, it was announced that the Tetris franchise had sold more than 170 million copies, approximately 70 million physical copies and over 100 million copies for cell phones , making it the best selling paid-downloaded game of all time . On 14 March 2014, The Tetris Company announced a deal to bring Tetris to two of the latest hardware platforms, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 , in partnership with Ubisoft (publishing) and SoMa Play (development), to coincide with the franchise’s 30th anniversary. [9] Contents Gameplay Extract of a game of an open-source Tetris clone “Tetriminos” are game pieces shaped like tetrominoes , geometric shapes composed of four square blocks each. A random sequence of Tetriminos fall down the playing field (a rectangular vertical shaft, called the “well” or “matrix”). The objective of the game is to manipulate these Tetriminos, by moving each one sideways (if the player feels the need) and rotating it by 90 degree units, with the aim of creating a horizontal line of ten units without gaps.

When such a line is created, it disappears, and any block above the deleted line will fall. When a certain number of lines are cleared, the game enters a new level. As the game progresses, each level causes the Tetriminos to fall faster, and the game ends when the stack of Tetriminos reaches the top of the playing field and no new Tetriminos are able to enter. Some games also end after a finite number of levels or lines. All of the Tetriminos are capable of single and double clears. I, J, and L are able to clear triples. Only the I Tetrimino has the capacity to clear four lines simultaneously, and this is referred to as a “tetris”. (This may vary depending on the rotation and compensation rules of each specific Tetris implementation. For instance, in the Super Rotation System used in most recent implementations, [10] certain situations allow T, S, and Z to ‘snap’ into tight spots and clear triples.) [11] Colors of Tetriminos Pajitnov’s original version for the Electronika 60 computer used green brackets to represent blocks.

[5] Versions of Tetris on the original Game Boy/Game Boy Color and on most dedicated handheld games use monochrome or grayscale graphics, but most popular versions use a separate color for each distinct shape. Prior to The Tetris Company’s standardization in the early 2000s (decade), those colors varied widely from implementation to implementation. Colors of Tetriminos in various Tetris games Tetrimino/ red Scoring The scoring formula for the majority of Tetris products is built on the idea that more difficult line clears should be awarded more points. For example, a single line clear in Tetris Zone is worth 100 points, clearing four lines at once (known as a Tetris) is worth 800, while a back-to-back Tetris is worth 1,200 each. [12] Nearly all Tetris games allow the player to press a button to increase the speed of the current piece’s descent, rather than waiting for it to fall.

The player can also stop the pieces increased speed before the piece reaches the floor by letting go of the button, this is a “soft drop”; otherwise, it is a “hard drop” (some games only allow soft drop or hard drop; others have separate buttons). Many games award a number of points based on the height that the piece fell before locking. Gravity Traditional versions of Tetris move the stacks of blocks down by a distance exactly equal to the height of the cleared rows below them. Contrary to the laws of gravity , blocks may be left floating above gaps. Implementing a different algorithm that uses a flood fill [13] to segment the playfield into connected regions will make each region fall individually, in parallel, until it touches the region at the bottom of the playfield. This opens up additional “chain-reaction” tactics involving blocks cascading to fill additional lines, which may be awarded as more valuable clears.

Original algorithm Algorithm with chain reactions Easy spin dispute The very first version of Tetris, released in 1984, run on an emulator of the Soviet DVK-2 computer Although not the first Tetris game to feature a new kind of Tetris, “easy spin” (see The Next Tetris ), also called “infinite spin” by critics, [14] Tetris Worlds was the first game to fall under major criticisms for it. Easy spin refers to the property of a Tetrimino to stop falling for a moment after left or right movement or rotation, effectively allowing someone to suspend the Tetrimino while thinking on where to place it. This feature has been implemented into The Tetris Company ‘s official guideline. [10] This new type of play differs from traditional Tetris because it takes away the pressure of higher level speed. Some reviewers [15] even went so far as to say that this mechanism broke the game. The goal in Tetris Worlds, however, is to complete a certain number of lines as fast as possible, so the ability to hold off a piece’s placement will not make achieving that goal any faster.

Later, GameSpot received “easy spin” more openly, saying that “the infinite spin issue honestly really affects only a few of the single-player gameplay modes in Tetris DS, because any competitive mode requires you to lay down pieces as quickly as humanly possible.” [16] In response to the issue, Henk Rogers stated in an interview that infinite spin was an intentional part of the game design, allowing novice players to expend some of their available scoring time to decide on the best placement of a piece. Rogers observed that “gratuitous spinning” does not occur in competitive play, as expert players do not require much time to think about where a piece should be placed. [10] History Screenshot of the 1986 IBM PC version released by Andromeda The version designed by Spectrum Holobyte contained Russia related images (Amiga version screenshot, 1988) Tetris was created in June 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov , an artificial intelligence researcher working for the Soviet Academy of Sciences at their Computer Center in Moscow. [17] Tasked with testing the capabilities of new hardware, Pajitnov would do so by writing simple games for them.

He initially considered creating a game around pentominoes , which featured in puzzle games that he had enjoyed as a child, but felt that it might have been too complicated with twelve different shape variations, so the concept switched to tetrominoes , of which there are only seven variants. [17] The Electronika 60 on which he was working had only a text-based display, so the tetrominoes were formed of letter characters. [17] Realizing that completed lines resulted in the screen filling up quickly, Pajitnov decided to delete them, creating a key part of Tetris gameplay. [17] Pajitnov’s game proved popular with his colleagues. [17] Academy of Sciences co-workers Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov ported the game to the IBM PC . Gerasimov reports that Pajitnov chose the name Tetris as “a combination of ‘ tetromino ‘ and ‘tennis’.” From there, the PC game exploded into popularity and began spreading all around Moscow (the most recent version of this port is available on Gerasimov’s website).

[5] Gerasimov removed his 1988 version of the game from his website in October 2003, in response to a demand from counsel for The Tetris Company. [18] [19] He resumed making it available in August 2006. [20] The PC version made its way to Budapest , Hungary, where it was ported to various platforms and was “discovered” by British software house Andromeda. They attempted to contact Pajitnov to secure the rights for the PC version, but before the deal was firmly settled, they had already sold the rights to Spectrum HoloByte . After failing to settle the deal with Pajitnov, Andromeda attempted to license it from the Hungarian programmers instead. Meanwhile, before any legal rights were settled, the Spectrum HoloByte IBM PC version of Tetris, which contained background graphics featuring Russian scenes, was released in the United States in 1987. The game’s popularity was tremendous; Computer Gaming World called the game “deceptively simple and insidiously addictive”.

[21] The details of the licensing issues were uncertain by this point, but in 1987 Andromeda managed to obtain copyright licensing for the IBM PC version and any other home computer system. Their Commodore 64 release in 1988 was notable for having a 26-minute (relatively long for the time) soundtrack composed by game musician Wally Beben. For Amiga and Atari ST , two different versions by Mirrorsoft (1987) and Spectrum Holobyte (1988) became available. The Mirrorsoft version did not feature any background graphics, while Spectrum Holobyte’s version was similar to their PC version and contained the similar images (it was also distributed by Infogrames in some regions). The games were sold as budget titles due to the game’s simplicity.

Spectrum’s Apple II package actually contained three diskettes with three different versions of the game, for the Apple II+ and Apple IIe on separate DOS 3.3 and ProDOS 5.25 in (133 mm) diskettes, and for the Apple IIgs on a 3.5 in (89 mm) diskette, none of which was copy-protected: the included documentation specifically charged the purchaser on his or her honor to not give away or copy the extra diskettes. Unsure of how to publish his game and fearful of the response of the Soviet regime if he did so, Pajitnov took the opportunity offered by Perestroika and gave the rights to the Soviet government for ten years. [17] [22] In 1988, the Soviet government began to market the rights to Tetris, following a promotional trip to the country by Gerald Hicks, the one-time United States champion of the game, through an organization called Elektronorgtechnica , or “Elorg” for short. At this time, Elorg had still not been paid by Andromeda, but Andromeda was licensing and sub-licensing the rights to the game.

A different version of Tetris was originally released in late 1988 by Bullet Proof Software (BPS) for several Japanese home computers as well as the MSX and the Family Computer in Japan , predating Nintendo’s version. An unlicensed arcade version was released in Korea , as well as an unlicensed Master System (titled Super Tetris (슈퍼 테트리스 Syupeo Teteuliseu)). Nintendo By 1989, half a dozen different companies claimed rights to create and distribute the Tetris software for home computers, game consoles and handheld systems. Elorg, meanwhile, held that none of the companies were legally entitled to produce an arcade version, and signed those rights over to Atari Games , while it signed non-Japanese console and handheld rights over to Nintendo . Tetris was on show at the January 1988 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where it was picked up by Dutch games publisher Henk Rogers , then based in Japan, which eventually led to an agreement brokered with Nintendo that saw Tetris bundled with every Game Boy .

[23] Rogers later stated, “Tetris made Game Boy and Game Boy made Tetris.” [17] Tengen Tengen (the console software division of Atari Games), regardless, applied for copyright for their Tetris game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, loosely based on the arcade version, and proceeded to market and distribute it under the name TETЯIS: The Soviet Mind Game (with faux Cyrillic typography incorporating the Cyrillic letter Ya ), disregarding Nintendo’s license from Elorg. Nintendo contacted Atari Games claiming they had stolen rights to Tetris, whereupon Atari Games sued, believing they had the rights. After only four weeks on the shelf, the courts ruled that Nintendo was the only company which had the rights to Tetris on home game systems. Tengen’s TETЯIS was recalled with an unknown number of copies sold. [24] The lawsuits between Tengen and Nintendo over the NES version carried on until 1993. The Tengen version of TETЯIS is now considered rare. NES A-Type game screenshot of the official NES version of Tetris. Nintendo released their version of Tetris for the NES, developed by Bullet-Proof Software like the Game Boy version.

The NES version sold 8 million copies worldwide. [25] Nintendo’s NES version lacked the side-by-side 2-player option featured in Tengen’s version. Nintendo Power reviewed this version in its November / December 1989 edition. The Classic Tetris World Championship commenced in 2010 and uses the NES version of Tetris. Sega In 1988 , an arcade version was released by Sega in Japan for the Sega System 16 and System E arcade boards . [26] It won the Japanese Gamest Award for Game of the Year the following year. Sega’s arcade version was commercially successful in Japanese arcades . On Famicom Tsūshin ‘s arcade earnings chart, it was number-three in August 1989 and September 1989. [27] It then rose to number two in October 1989, overtaking Namco ‘s racing video game Winning Run . [28] Sega released a Tetris game for the Japanese Mega Drive similar to their arcade release. However, the ensuing blitz of litigation ensured that it was hastily withdrawn. It is estimated that only between 5 and 8 copies were produced.

In 2014, in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the series, Sega released Puyo Puyo Tetris , a multi-platform game that blends gameplay elements of both the Tetris and Puyo Puyo franchises. [29] The Tetris Company In 1996, the rights to the game reverted from the Russian state to Pajitnov himself, who previously had made very little money from the game. [23] In 1996, The Tetris Company was founded, claiming to hold copyright registrations for Tetris products in the U.S. [30] [31] and taking out trademark registrations for Tetris in almost every country in the world. [32] They have licensed the brand to a number of companies, and the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Customs have at times issued seizure orders to preclude unlicensed Tetris-like games from being imported into the U.S., [33] though bulletins circulated by the U.S. Copyright Office state that copyright does not apply to the rules of a game.

[34] [35] In mid-2006, [36] and in late 1997, [37] TTC’s legal counsel sent cease and desist letters to Web sites on the basis of Tetris-type games infringing the “Tetris” trademark, trade dress , and/or “ look and feel ” copyright. Around 2009, TTC and Tetris Holding LLC brought legal action against BioSocia, Inc., on the grounds that BioSocia’s “Blockles” game infringed on proprietary rights that were held by TTC and Tetris Holding LLC. [38] On September 10, 2009, the legal case against BioSocia was resolved, with BioSocia agreeing to discontinue making the “Blockles” game available to the public. [38] In May 2010, TTC’s legal counsel sent cease and desist letters to Google insisting that 35 Tetris clones be removed from the Android Market .

[39] A US District Court judge ruled in June 2012 that the Tetris clone “Mino” from Xio Interactive infringed on The Tetris Company’s copyrights by replicating such elements as the playfield dimensions and the shapes of the blocks. [40] In 2012, The Tetris Company trademarked both the shapes of the blocks and the playfield dimensions. Variations A 5th generation iPod featuring Tetris (2006) Tetris has been subject to many changes throughout releases since the 1980s. Newer Tetris games have focused on a trend of pace rather than endurance. Older releases such as Game Boy or NES Tetris offer records according to points. Since the meter for points is restricted to a specific number of digits, these games’ records can be “maxed out” by an experienced player. The next big Game Boy release after Tetris, Tetris DX, in marathon mode—comparable to mode A in previous releases—allowed an additional digit for the point meter. Even so, players still maxed it to 9,999,999 points after hours of play.

For The New Tetris , world record competitors have spent over 12 hours playing the same game. [41] In Tetris DX and The New Tetris, the new modes sprint and ultra were added. These modes require the player to act under a timer, either to gain the most lines or points in that time. Releases like Tetris Worlds did away completely with point records. This particular game kept records by how fast a certain number of lines could be cleared depending on the level. Critics of Tetris Worlds said it was flawed by virtue of the ability of a piece to hover over the bottom for as long as a player needs. [15] There are many different modes of play added in recent years. Modes appearing in more than one major release include classic marathon (game A), sprint (otherwise game B or 40 lines), ultra, square, and cascade. The field dimension of Tetris is perhaps the least deviated among releases: almost always 10 cells wide by 20 high. Some releases on handheld platforms with small screens have smaller fields; for example, the Tetris Jr. keychain game has 8 by 12, and Tetris for Game Boy has 10 by 18.

Traditionally, blocks spawn within the four most central columns and the two highest rows. The I Tetrimino occupies columns 4, 5, 6 and 7, the O Tetrimino occupies columns 5 and 6, and the remaining 5 Tetriminos occupy columns 4, 5 and 6 (or in some, especially older, versions, 5, 6 and 7). In some more recent games, pieces spawn above the visible playfield. In traditional games, a level-up would occur once every ten lines are cleared. After a level-up, the blocks fall slightly faster, and typically more points are given. In some newer games such as Tetris Worlds, the number of lines required vary upon each new level. For example, NES Tetris operates at 60 frames per second. At level 0, a piece falls one step every 48 frames, and at level 19, a piece falls one step every 2 frames. Level increments either terminate at a certain point (Game Boy Tetris tops off at level 20) or increase forever yet not in speed after a certain point.

NES Tetris will level up in speed until level 29 (due to limitations of the game’s engine, pieces are not capable of dropping faster than this), but tool-assisted emulation will show that the level indicator increases indefinitely—eventually leading to a glitch where the meter displays non-numeric characters. Modern games such as Tetris the Grand Master or Tetris Worlds, at their highest levels, opt to drop a piece more than one row per frame. Pieces will appear to reach the bottom as soon as they spawn. As a result, these games have a delay that lets the player slide the piece on the bottom for a moment to help deal with an otherwise unplayable fall speed. In some games, the hover time is regenerated after a piece is moved or rotated. Soft drops were first implemented in Nintendo releases of Tetris so that pieces would be able to drop faster while not locking as to slide into gaps. The other option is hard dropping, which originated in early PC games such as Microsoft Tetris, a game developed by Dave Edson and bundled with Microsoft Entertainment Pack . With hard dropping, a piece falls and locks in one frame. Newer Tetris games feature both options.

Some games have their locking roles reversed, with soft dropping making the pieces drop faster and locking down, and hard dropping making the pieces drop instantly but not lock. Single direction rotation is an older restriction that has since been ruled out in nearly every new official release by the favor of separate buttons for clockwise and one for counter clockwise rotation. In traditional games, the unsymmetrical vertical orientation I-, Z-, and S-pieces will fill the same columns for each clockwise and counter clockwise rotation. Some games vary this by allowing two possible column orientations: one for counter clockwise and one for clockwise rotations. Double rotation—only seen in progressive clones such as Quadra and DTET—rotates the piece 180°. One of the features most appreciated by skilled players is wall kick or the ability to rotate the pieces even if these touch the left or right walls. In the NES version, for example, if a Z piece is “vertically” aligned and falling touching the left wall, the player cannot rotate the piece, giving the impression that the rotate buttons are locked. In this situation, the player has to move the piece one position to the right before rotating it, losing precious time.

Proper implementations of wall kick first appeared in the arcade version of Tetris by Atari Games. Piece preview allows a look at the next piece to enter the field. This feature has been implemented since the earliest games, though in those early games, having the preview turned on made the score increase more slowly. Variants Several Tetris variants exist. Some feature alternate rules and pieces, some feature alternate topologies or dimensions, and others have completely different gameplay. A popular variant called “The Grand Master” eventually becomes so fast players have to use every second of time optimally, and it even has a mode dubbed “Invisible Tetris”, where the blocks are only shown when falling – then finally revealed when the game is over. Because of its popularity and the relatively simple code required to produce the game, a game with nearly the same rules as Tetris is often used as a hello world project for programmers coding for a new system or programming language. This has resulted in the availability of a large number of ports for different platforms. For instance, µTorrent and GNU Emacs contain similar shape-stacking games as easter eggs.

[42] [43] End of play Players lose a typical game of Tetris when they can no longer keep up with the increasing speed, or when the player can not find an appropriate solution to the Tetriminos they’ve been given and the Tetriminos stack up to the top of the playing field. This is commonly referred to as “topping out.” Possibility of infinite gameplay The question Would it be possible to play forever? was first encountered in a thesis by John Brzustowski in 1992. [44] The conclusion reached was that the game is inevitably doomed to end. The reason has to do with the S and Z Tetriminos. If a player receives a large sequence of alternating S and Z Tetriminos, the naïve gravity used by the standard game eventually forces the player to leave holes on the board. The holes will necessarily stack to the top and, ultimately, end the game. If the pieces are distributed randomly, this sequence will eventually occur. Thus, if a game with an ideal, uniform, uncorrelated random number generator is played long enough, any player will top out. [45] [46] In practice, this does not occur in most Tetris variants.

Some variants allow the player to choose to play with only S and Z Tetriminos, [47] and a good player may survive well over 150 consecutive Tetriminos this way. On an implementation with an ideal uniform randomizer, the probability at any given time of the next 150 Tetriminos being only S and Z is (2/7)150 (approximately 2×10−82). Most implementations use a pseudorandom number generator to generate the sequence of Tetriminos, and such an S–Z sequence is almost certainly not contained in the sequence produced by the 32-bit linear congruential generator in many implementations (which has roughly 4.2×109 states). The “evil” algorithm in Bastet (an unofficial variant) often starts a game with a series of more than seven Z pieces. Modern versions of Tetris released after 2001 use a bag-style randomizer that guarantees players will never receive more than four S or Z pieces in a row. This is one of the “Indispensable Rules” enforced by the Tetris Guideline that all officially licensed Tetris games must follow.

[10] Recent versions of Tetris such as Tetris Worlds allow the player to repeatedly rotate a block once it hits the bottom of the playfield, without it locking into place (see Easy spin dispute , above). This permits a player to play for an infinite amount of time, though not necessarily to land an infinite number of blocks. Computational complexity In computer science , it is common to analyze the computational complexity of problems, including real life problems and games. It was proven that for the “offline” version of Tetris (the player knows the complete sequence of pieces that will be dropped, i.e. there is no hidden information) the following objectives are NP-complete : Maximizing the number of rows cleared while playing the given piece sequence. Maximizing the number of pieces placed before a loss occurs. Maximizing the number of simultaneous clearing of four rows. Minimizing the height of the highest filled grid square over the course of the sequence. Also, it is difficult to even approximately solve the first, second, and fourth problem. It is NP-hard, given an initial gameboard and a sequence of p pieces, to approximate the first two problems to within a factor of p {\displaystyle \epsilon >0} .

To prove NP-completeness, it was shown that there is a polynomial reduction between the 3-partition problem , which is also NP-Complete, and the Tetris problem. [48] Music Game Boy version Music A in version 1.1 of the Game Boy edition of Tetris has become very widely known, to the point that Level 20 in Tetris DS is based on this Game Boy version of Tetris and uses that theme. It is an instrumental arrangement of a Russian folk tune called “ Korobeiniki “, which has been covered by UK dance band Doctor Spin , US alternative rock band Ozma , Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra , Basshunter the Swedish Eurodance DJ, Doctor P, and the German techno group Scooter on their 2007 album Jumping All Over the World . It was also sampled in “21 Concepts” by MC Lars . Music A and B are also remixed and arranged for Super Smash Bros. Brawl , and can be selected for the stage “ Luigi’s Mansion “, as well as being used in custom stages.

The song has also been remixed for two dance games, under the name “Pumptris Quattro” in Pump It Up NX2 and “Happy-hopper” in Dance Maniax 2nd Mix. Ronan Murray has recorded an arrangement of the tune for pipe organ . A remix was also made by the Hip-hop group Decav5. The A theme was adapted by Australian jazz / folk group Flap!, with original lyrics added, on their debut album Flap!. [49] The remixes were brought back in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U , with Music A once again playing in “Luigi’s Mansion” in the Wii U version and being one of the bonus songs to play in the 3DS exclusive “Smash Run” mode, and Music B playing in “Wuhu Island” from Wii Sports Resort . Music B in the Game Boy version is an original track by Hirokazu Tanaka . Music C in the Game Boy version is an arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach ‘s French Suite No. 3 In B Minor, BWV 814, IV. Menuett – Trio .

A 6.06-minute concert version has been composed by Nikolai Aleeksevich Nekrasov. [50] Nintendo Entertainment System version Music 1 in Nintendo’s NES version is “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”, a tune noted to be scene 14c of act two of The Nutcracker , composed by Tchaikovsky . One song in the BPS and Tengen versions is the “Kalinka” (or Karinka, as referred in-game), a famous Russian song written by Ivan Petrovich Larionov. The victory song playing while the rocket blasts off is George’s Bizet’s “Les Toreadors” from Carmen suite no. 1 Atari version Atari’s arcade version of Tetris, and its NES port by subsidiary Tengen have original pieces composed by Brad Fuller, as well as traditional Russian tunes also arranged by Fuller. [51] Effect of Tetris on the brain According to research from Dr. Richard Haier, et al. prolonged Tetris activity can also lead to more efficient brain activity during play. [52] When first playing Tetris, brain function and activity increases, along with greater cerebral energy consumption, measured by glucose metabolic rate.

As Tetris players become more proficient, their brains show a reduced consumption of glucose, indicating more efficient brain activity for this task. [53] Moderate play of Tetris (half-an-hour a day for three months) boosts general cognitive functions such as “critical thinking, reasoning, language and processing” and increases cerebral cortex thickness. [54] In January 2009, an Oxford University research group headed by Dr. Emily Holmes reported in PLoS ONE that for healthy volunteers, playing Tetris soon after viewing traumatic material in the laboratory reduced the number of flashbacks to those scenes in the following week. They believe that the computer game may disrupt the memories that are retained of the sights and sounds witnessed at the time, and which are later re-experienced through involuntary, distressing flashbacks of that moment. The group hopes to develop this approach further as a potential intervention to reduce the flashbacks experienced in post-traumatic stress disorder but emphasized that these are only preliminary results. [55] Professor Jackie Andrade and Jon May, from Plymouth University’s Cognition Institute, and Ph.D.

student Jessica Skorka-Brown have conducted research that shows that playing Tetris could give a “quick and manageable” fix for people struggling to stick to diets, or quit smoking or drinking. [56] Another notable effect is that, according to a Canadian study in April 2013, playing Tetris has been found to treat older adolescents with amblyopia (lazy eye), which was better than patching a victim’s well eye to train his weaker eye. Dr. Robert Hess of the research team said: “It’s much better than patching – much more enjoyable; it’s faster, and it seems to work better.”. [57] Tested in the United Kingdom , this experiment also appears to help children with that problem. [58] The game has been noted to cause the brain to involuntarily picture Tetris combinations even when the player is not playing (the Tetris effect ), although this can occur with any computer game or situation showcasing repeated images or scenarios, such as a jigsaw puzzle . Hasbro Games In 2013, The Tetris Company signed a contract with Hasbro to make a Bop It and a Jenga themed version of Tetris.

The games were first shown to the public at the New York Toy Fair and Bop It Tetris was first sold on Amazon.com in June 2013. Jenga Tetris is just like Jenga but using Tetris shapes. Bop It Tetris is an audio game . It has several game modes including Marathon and Pass It. In the Marathon Mode, the player has four lives and has to complete the puzzles with the square lights. The game unit has three actions which are: “Slam It” which slams the top part of the device down, “Slide it”, a screen which can rotate from left and right, and “Spin It”, where the device can spin. If the player fails to complete the puzzle, the voice of Buddy Rubino will make a Santa Claus type laugh and will encourage the player with a comment such as: “Squares man! They’re just squares!” or “Shapes are hard!” and Buddy will then say “Life lost” and one of the four squares on the top screen will disappear. After every stage is completed Buddy will tell the player with a comment such as: “Level up!” and there will then be a 45-second bonus round which the player can score two or more bonus points.

In the Pass It Mode, it is the same as the Marathon mode except Buddy Rubino will say “Pass It” to let other people join in. Legacy Sinclair User SU Classic Compute! called the IBM version of Tetris “one of the most addictive computer games this side of the Berlin Wall … [it] is not the game to start if you have work to do or an appointment to keep. Consider yourself warned”. [70] Orson Scott Card joked that the game “proves that Russia still wants to bury us . I shudder to think of the blow to our economy as computer productivity drops to 0″. Noting that Tetris was not copy-protected, he wrote “Obviously, the game is meant to find its way onto every American machine”. [71] The IBM version of the game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon No. 135 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in “The Role of Computers” column. The reviewers gave the game 4.5 out of 5 stars. [72] The Lessers later reviewed Spectrum HoloByte’s Macintosh version of Tetris in 1989 in Dragon No.

141, giving that version 5 out of 5 stars. [73] In 1993, the ZX Spectrum version of the game was voted number 49 in the Your Sinclair Official Top 100 Games of All Time. [74] In 1996, Tetris Pro was ranked the 38th best game of all time by Amiga Power . [75] Computer Gaming World gave Tetris the 1989 Compute! Choice Award for Arcade Game, describing it as “by far, the most addictive game ever”. [76] The game won three Software Publishing Association Excellence in Software Awards in 1989, including Best Entertainment Program and the Critic’s Choice Award for consumers. [77] On March 12, 2007, The New York Times reported that Tetris was named to a list of the ten most important video games of all time, the so-called game canon . [78] After announced at the 2007 Game Developers Conference , the Library of Congress took up the video game preservation proposal and began with these 10 games, including Tetris.

[79] [80] In 2007, video game website GameFAQs hosted its sixth annual “ Character Battle “, in which the users nominate their favorite video game characters for a popularity contest in which characters participate. The L-shaped Tetris piece (or “L-Block” as it was called) entered the contest as a joke character, but on November 4, 2007, it won the contest. [81] On June 6, 2009, Google honored Tetris‘ 25-year anniversary by changing its logotype to a version drawn with Tetris blocks – the “l” letter being the long Tetris block lowering into its place, [82] seen here. [83] In 2009, Game Informer put Tetris 3rd on their list of “The Top 200 Games of All Time”, saying that “If a game could be considered ageless, it’s Tetris“. [84] The Game Informer staff also placed it third on their 2001 list of the 100 best games ever.

[85] Electronic Gaming Monthly ‘s 100th issue had Tetris as first place in the “Greatest Game of All Time”. In 2007, Tetris came in second place in IGN ‘s “100 Greatest Video Games of All Time”. [86] In January 2010, it was announced that the Tetris franchise had sold more than 170 million copies, approximately 70 million physical copies and over 100 million copies for cell phones , [23] [87] making it the best-selling paid-downloaded game of all time . Guinness World Records has recognized the game as being the most ported in the history of video gaming, appearing on in excess of 65 different platforms by 2011. [88] In research Tetris has been the subject of academic research. Vladimir Pokhilko was the first clinical psychologist to conduct experiments using Tetris. [89] Subsequently, it has been used for research in several fields including the theory of computation , algorithmic theory, and cognitive psychology . During the game of Tetris, blocks appear to adsorb onto the lower surface of the window.

This has led scientists to use tetrominoes “as a proxy for molecules with a complex shape” to model their “ adsorption on a flat surface” to study the thermodynamics of nanoparticles . [90] [91] Film Threshold Entertainment has teamed up with The Tetris Company to develop a film adaptation of Tetris. Threshold’s CEO describes the film as an Epic Sci-Fi Adventure film and that the story is so big, it’ll be part of a trilogy. [92] The film will be shot in China in 2017 with an $80 million budget. [93] Tetris appeared in the 2010 short animated film Pixels , and in the 2015 movie Pixels inspired by the former. See also Tetris - Online Tetris Games to Play for Free or for Real Money Site Reviews Tetris: Online Tetris Games to Play for Free or for Real Money I've been hooked on Tetris for years, and I'm always looking for online Tetris games to play for free or for money. Whether it's an authentic version of the game created by Alexey Pajitnov or nothing more than a thinly-veiled knockoff, I'm willing to give it a try.

I'm not the only one, either, as Tetris has sold a few hundred million copies and become the most popular game of the computer age. How to Play Tetris Each game piece in Tetris is composed of four square blocks known as Tetriminos. These pieces make up different shapes (cube, L-shaped, etc.), and a random sequence of cubes will fall down from the top of the playing field. Players must try to rotate the Tetriminos as they fall (they can also control the speed of the fall), with the goal being to create a horizontal lines of blocks that stretches across the playing field. If successful, that row of blocks will disappear, and any blocks above it will fall down one level. This can lead to a chain reaction of lines being cleared. As the game progresses, the Tetriminos will fall faster and the rows of blocks will begin to rise. If the blocks ever reach the top of the playing area, then the game is over. Scoring is based on the difficulty of the lines cleared. Clearing four lines at once (known as a "Tetris") awards extra points, as does achieving a back-to-back Tetris.

Some versions of the game also award points based on the height that a playing piece dropped before locking into place. Click Here to Play Jetris Online for Real Money The History of Tetris The history of Tetris began in 1984, when it was created by a Moscow computer engineer named Alexey Pajitnov. The name "Tetris" was a combination of two words: "tetramino," the unique four-block shapes that make up the objects in Tetris; and "tennis," Pajitnov's favorite sport. The game was ported to the IBM PC by Vadim Gerasimov and started gaining popularity throughout Moscow. It next spread to Hungary, where it was released for a number of gaming platforms. Andromeda, a British gaming company, discovered the game and marketed it abroad, although they had yet to settle a licensing deal with the game's creator. Tetris made its American debut in 1986 (becoming the first game from the USSR to arrive in the United States), and it had an immediate impact. Gamers were enthralled by the simple concept that proved impossible to master, and Tetris slowly grew in popularity.

Meanwhile, the Russian government began to market the game, as anything created by Pajitnov while he worked at the Soviet Academy of Sciences was considered to be property of the state. At the same time, Andromeda was continuing to license the game on their own. By 1989, six different companies claimed the right to Tetris. One such organization signed an agreement with Nintendo, and Tetris was soon being sold as a game for the popular handheld system known as the Game Boy. Tetris experienced an explosion in popularity, with the Game Boy version selling over 33 million copies. The rights held by the Soviet government reverted to Pajitnov in 1996, and he wasted no time in forming The Tetris Company and applying for trademarks around the globe. This resulted in a number of legal battles, but Pajitnov was able to finally secure financial compensation for his creation, as well as launch a career as a successful game designer. Over the years, the reputation of Tetris has continued to grow. It has been released for numerous gaming platforms, as well as being named one of the best games of all time by everyone from IGN to Electronic Gaming Monthly.

The cell phone version of Tetris made its debut in 2005, and over 100 million copies would be sold over the next five years. No matter what new handheld gadget or home gaming platform hits the market, Tetris always seems poised to make a splash. Online Tetris Games for Free Gamers looking for a free online version of Tetris should be pleased by all the choices available. My personal favorite is located at Free Tetris , as this Flash version is ready to go within seconds. It moves along at a fast pace from the beginning, and there's nothing to download. The king of free online Tetris games has to be Tetris Friends . In addition to the standard version of the game, players can also compete in numerous variants. The version known as Sprint is one of my favorites, as it requires players to complete 40 lines as fast as they can. A leader board keeps track of your performance, and you'll even be able to challenge up to five friends in multi-player mode. Online Tetris Games for Money While Tetris can be played for the simple pleasure of challenging your mind, some gamers prefer to play online Tetris for money.

You'll have to be content with playing unlicensed versions of the game, however, as my search turned up a number of knockoffs on the play-for-money sites. For example, GameDuell offers a version known as Jetris , where one side of the screen depicts scenes from around the globe. The rest of the screen is devoted to a game that plays and looks exactly like the classic version of Tetris. WorldWinner is another gaming site that offers the chance to play online Tetris for money. In this case, the game is called Cubis, and players are required to clear away colored cubes in order to win the level. Sound familiar? Licensed Versions of Tetris There have been over 45 licensed versions of Tetris released, and that number is sure to grow in the coming years. These include games from a wide range of companies, as the early years of Tetris saw numerous brands competing to market their own versions (without approval from the creator). The inventor of the game, Alexey Pajitnov, has developed several follow-up versions to the original. These include: Welltris, Hatris, and Faces Tris III. A number of licensed versions of Tetris were released only in a specific country.

For example, V-Tetris was released exclusively in Japan in 1995, while U.S. players were the only ones able to enjoy 1996's 3D Tetris. Tetris has also been known to incorporate themes into its design. Characters from the world of Mario have been melded with Tetris on a number of occasions, as well as Cardcaptor Sakura and creations from the mind of Walt Disney. Unlicensed Variants of Tetris While numerous companies have released "official" Tetris products over the years, there are also those who were happy to change the name, alter the design slightly, and then thrust an unlicensed Tetris variant onto the public. Once the rights reverted to original creator Alexey Pajitnov, he formed his own company and successful fought to have many of these imitations pulled from the marketplace and the Internet. Check any site offering a large number of online games, and you're likely to find one or more Tetris imitations. Those sold for home computers and gaming platforms tend to be more creative, with one version adding a physics engine to the falling blocks and another changing the game pieces into four-dimensional tesseracts.

The Tetris Effect Tetris is so addictive that an actual sensory phenomenon has been named after it. "The Tetris Effect" occurs when people devote so much time to an activity that is begins to creep into other aspects of their life. For example, a person who's been playing Tetris for hours might dream about cube-like shapes, or they might begin unconsciously studying real-world objects to learn how they would fit together. The Tetris Effect can apply to other video games, as well as more mundane activities. Gamers looking for online Tetris games to play for free or for money have an increasing number of options available. Mobile devices also allow owners to enjoy Tetris whenever they have a moment to spare. While various wrinkles have been added over the years, the most popular version of Tetris remains the basic edition featuring colored Tetriminos falling in a random order. Tetromino | Tetris Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit Each tetromino has a letter name and several alternative names. In most games other than Tetris for NES , Tetris & Dr. Mario , or black-and-white systems, each tetromino has a different color.

However, before about 2001, these colors varied from product to product, making it difficult for people who play different games to discuss "the blue piece". Since then, the color schemes associated with SRS and TGM Rotation have dominated new games, and "the blue piece" is always J. I Other names include straight, stick, and long. This is the only tetromino that can clear four lines outside of cascade games. O Other names include square and block. T Other names include The Tetris Block,T turn S Other names include inverse skew and right snake. Z Other names include outverse skew and left snake. J Other names include gamma, inverse L, or left gun. L Other names include alpha, outverse J, or right gun. Multimino Edit In The Next Tetris , Sticky mode of Tetris Worlds and Tetris Mania , and Jewelry Master , some tetrominoes are multiminoes, that is, the tetromino itself is divided into visible components. Though the tetromino is moved and rotated as a unit, once it locks , the components separate by colors and fall.

"Poly"-mino In some games like Magical Tetris Challenge , there have Minos that consist of 5 to 25 squares to make the gameplay more challenging. The "Heaven" Polymino Edit In "Tetris Heaven" as concieved of by Randall Monroe in xkcd.com/888/ , the "Heaven Block" is the exact size and shape required to eliminate every open row up to the highest column. In most fanmade adaptions, the piece is portrayed as a single square when shown as coming next. List of Tetrominos Edit In Puyo Puyo Tetris, the Blocks: T, O, S, and I each has its own personification. All aboard the Tet-Ship, named Teto gou (テト号) in Japanese. [1] [2] T (ティ, pronounced as Ti) is the youthful pretty boy commander of the group, resembling Puyo Puyo's Schezo and Maguro. O (オー, pronounced as Oo) is the ship's mascot that supervises the ship, resembling Puyo Puyo's Carbuncle.

S (エス, pronounced as Esu) is a space Sci-Fi Southern Belle type girl, with sharp abusive tongue and a Father Complex. She resembles Puyo Puyo's Raffine and Strawberryna, along with Rhythm Thief R's Maria. I (アイ, pronounced as Ai) is the easily scared rat headed engineer, resembling Puyo Puyo's Risukuma Sempai. Copying the Look and Feel of Tetris Is Software Copyright Infringement | The Software Intellectual Property Report Copying the Look and Feel of Tetris Is Software Copyright Infringement By Charles Bieneman on May 31, 2012 in Copyright Xio Interactive did not dispute that it blatantly copied the look and feel of the Tetris video game, even if not its source code. After Xio’s Mino game was posted on Apple’s iTunes store, Tetris Holding, LLC, sued Xio for copyright infringement and trade dress infringement. The court granted summary judgment to Tetris on both claims, finding, with respect to the copyright infringement claim, that the look and feel of Tetris is copyrightable expression distinguishable from the ideas of the game. Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc.

, No. 09-6115 (D. N.J. May 30, 2012). Tetris identified 14 copyrightable elements of the game that Mino had admittedly copied, and that Tetris argued constituted protectable expression. These elements included the number and configuration of playing pieces, the size of the playing field, the way pieces moved in the playing field, the behavior of the game when a horizontal line was filled, and the behavior of the game when over, just to name some. Xio’s copying did not arouse sympathy, to say the least. Xio admitted that it had been founded for the purpose of making a game similar to Tetris for the iPhone, and that it had “downloaded Tetris’s iPhone application for the purpose of developing its own version and used it in the development of Mino.” Further, Xio conceded the elements of copyright infringement, i.e., that it had copied elements of the Tetris game, and that Tetris owned a valid copyright.

Xio claimed that it had been careful not to copy protectable elements of Tetris, resting on the defense that the copied elements were not protectable expression but instead were unprotectable “rules, function and expression” that were “essential to the gameplay.” Thus, the court explained that the question was “not whether summary judgment is appropriate, but rather, which party is entitled to summary judgment.” Much of the court’s opinion is devoted to a detailed review of the case law concerning software copyright infringement, focusing especially on Whelan Assocs., Inc. v. Jaslow Dental Laboratory, Inc., 797 F.2d 1222 (3d Cir. 1986) and Computer Assocs. Int’l v. Altai, 982 F.2d 693 (2d Cir. 1992), which each addressed the issue of how to separate ideas embodied in software from protectable expression. The court noted that Whelan has been widely criticized and Altai widely followed.

However, the court here found that Altai’s abstraction-filtration-comparison test was “much the same analysis” as Whelan’s separation of “the purpose or function of a utilitarian work,” i.e., an idea, from “everything that is not necessary to that purpose or function,” i.e., “part of the expression of the idea.” Here, Xio attempted to rely on the doctrines of merger, which holds that an expression is unprotectable when it is the only way of expressing an idea, and scènes à faire, which holds that expression compelled by a particular idea, e.g., standard or stock literary devices, are unprotectable. In what the court described as a conflation of “the doctrines of merger and scènes à faire,” Xio argued that Tetris could not “protect expression inseparable from either game rules or game function.” Further, according to Xio, Tetris could not protect by copyright what was properly only protectable by patent. The court disagreed.

Simply because a work’s functional aspects could not be protected by copyright as with a patent, it did not follow “that any and all expression related to a game rule or game function is unprotectable.” (Emphasis added.) Because “almost all expressive elements of a game are related in some way to the rules and functions of gameplay,” Xio’s argument would create “an exception to copyright [that] would likely swallow any protection one could possibly have.” Discussing a number of cases addressing the separation of idea and expression going back to Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879), and focusing on Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International, Inc., 49 F.3d 807 (1st Cir. 1995), the court extracted the principle that expression had been held unprotectable where an idea or concept would have been useless without it. For example, the hierarchical menu structure at issue in Lotus was very basic, and the ways in which it could be expressed were so limited that the expression of the menu merged with the idea of it.

Considering what could not be protected in Tetris, the court referred to fundamental rules of the game: Tetris is a puzzle game where a user manipulates pieces composed of square blocks, each made into a different geometric shape, that fall from the top of the game board to the bottom where the pieces accumulate. The user is given a new piece after the current one reaches the bottom of the available game space. While a piece is falling, the user rotates it in order to fit it in with the accumulated pieces. The object of the puzzle is to fill all spaces along a horizontal line. If that is accomplished, the line is erased, points are earned, and more of the game board is available for play. But if the pieces accumulate and reach the top of the screen, then the game is over. These then are the general, abstract ideas underlying Tetris and cannot be protected by copyright nor can expressive elements that are inseparable from them. With an identification of unprotectable elements out of the way, the court turned to what was protectable, beginning by showing almost indistinguishable screenshots of the two games side by side.

The court noted that “if one has to squint to find distinctions only at a granular level, then the works are likely to be substantially similar.” Further, the court pointed to numerous elements of the games that were difficult to distinguish, such as the shape, color, and look of game bricks, the pieces formed from the bricks, the way the game pieces could be fitted together in a complete line, the pieces’ movement and rotation, the precise size of the playing field, the behavior of the display upon certain events, and other specific design choices that Xio had copied. Xio’s defenses to the copyright infringement claim therefore failed as a matter of law. The court was then able to dispose of the trade dress claim relatively quickly, because of the elements of trade dress infringement (distinctiveness giving rise to secondary meaning, lack of functionality, and likelihood of confusion), Xio disputed only that Tetris’s trade dress was non-functional. Under both the analysis just conducted with respect to copyright infringement, and the standard established by Traffix Devices v. Mktg. Displays, 532 U.S. 23 (2001), Xio’s arguments failed. I remember playing Tetris in law school as an escape from studying.

Without saying how long ago that was, it suffices to note that the game was still relatively new and different back then. I certainly never would have guessed that the game would survive all those years to become embedded in the case law of the 21st century, as Tetris undoubtedly now will be. Share this page:

Question: How many square blocks is each game piece composed of in the game of ‘Tetris’?
Answer: Four